This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home
Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost
Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home
All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can
Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home
Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost
Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home
All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can
Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again
Lyrics submitted by Mechanical Bird
Welcome Home Lyrics as written by Benjamin Cooper
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Great version of a great song,
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I'm actually surprised at the variance in interpretation of this song, as I thought the title of it made it pretty straightforward. I suppose we all have our own perspectives, though. I do think that anyone that mentioned it being about returning to a "childhood home" is pretty much right on the money.
"Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done"
This is quite honestly the only verse in the song that I have a problem with making sense of, but as far as I can see, he is talking about just arriving at his old home, where he grew up. He can't manage to get to sleep because he's spending all his visit thinking about the memories he has of this place. "And the days blur into one" is quite obviously about his memories, all blurring into one. Never to return to again. "And the backs of my eyes" is probably referencing his brain, remembering things that he did or did not experience.
"Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home"
Of course signifying specific memories he had of his old home. Clarifying his family's old struggles not with disdain, but optimism. They didn't have much, but they did what they could.
"Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost"
This is about relationSHIPS, with "launching from my chest" meaning his heart. Some of them were lasting, some of them he loved, but most of them were just passing flings. The last line of the stanza I believe is him saying he wants to know how these relationships all failed. It's not that he wants them back, he just doesn't fully understand how/what happens to people to make them sever ties. I don't fully believe this is about people he dated, but moreso relationships in general, including friendships.
"Heal the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home"
Him telling of his past harmful experiences, those behind him. He's done fretting about them, they're not important anymore. He's in a place comfortable to him, where he is protected from his "mental" scars, or they are at LEAST kept at bay while he is here, Home.
"All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can"
This stanza I believe both emphasizes the last one, and clarifies why exactly he came back. Clearly, he lost someone dear to him, most likely a parent, as the "you" he is referencing in this song is most definitely either his mother or father. He is struggling dealing with his loss.
"Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again"
This seems to be the line that everyone has the most trouble with, but as soon as I heard it the first time, I immediately knew what he was talking about. When a parent picks up their child, where do they grab them? From beneath the lungs. Their thumbs press into them.
He is obviously looking back with fondness to his former life. Being home, secure, at peace. He's never surprised when someone lets him down, but he has a place to fall back on when it's too much for him to handle.
That was my first interpretation of the line "Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again"<br />
While at first I strongly related to the whole lost-love theory, and still do, now I definitely can see it differently. <br /> <br /> I didn't think this song could possibly be more heartbreaking, but damn. I identify so much with your interpretation - I'm going to be making a trip back home to see some family in a few months, and I'm dreading the onslaught of bittersweet nostalgia, because it's almost always accompanied by plain old ugly bitterness.<br /> <br /> On one hand it does make me feel safe, warm, welcome. I mean - these are the people who really know me, this is the place that made me who I've become for better or worse. On the other, just...no. So many regrets, so many painful memories. And at the same time I find myself struggling to hold onto them, because there's good there, too. <br /> <br /> I have to fight the unwanted pangs of happiness even harder than the moments of sadness. Because those are the ones that hurt the most when they inevitably evaporate within the span of a second. That barely-there, nearly-worn-away person I used to be, dances around the spotlight and haunts the edges of the stage. <br /> <br /> My family has changed so much yet they are exactly as I remember, or at least how I imagine they used to be, because now I'm not sure how skewed my perceptions are. How different they might actually be. If I even saw who they really were way back then. If they even saw who I was.<br /> <br /> Home is such a weird place to be.
@HandForTender - <br /> "Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun<br /> And the days blur into one<br /> And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done" - This is quite honestly the only verse in the song that I have a problem with making sense of...<br /> <br /> I don't know what the writer was saying, but as a listener I was hearing a relatable description of using drugs. In recovery programs, newcomers to anonymous meetings are given a chip and a hug, and very often the meeting chair says "welcome home" as they literally embrace the newcomer. Many stimulant drugs (both legal and prescription, such as those intended to treat narcolepsy or ADD) can let you go a couple days on no sleep. From my personal perspective, I'd think I was "up late" studying, and when I'd see light coming through my windows my heart would sink as I realized it was already tomorrow and I was starting the day, ready or not. Most embarrassingly, I would catch myself talking about doing something "yesterday" and the other person would say "that was two days ago." Because I had not allowed each day to have a beginning and an end, they literally blurred into one day.<br /> <br /> The backs of your eyes, where your stimulant-induced brilliance takes place, are often just ideas that you never follow through with (on many stimulants). Another thing taking place in that spazmatic brain is--in the case of many amphetamines--hallucination, delusion, and other shit that looks identical to Schizophrenia, which doctors have dubbed "Stimulant-induced psychosis." <br /> <br /> During a recovery program, one of the twelve steps is the directive requiring the individual to unload all past wrongdoings (mostly secrets) to another human being. The feeling has been described to me in many ways by those in recovery, and while "ships launching from one's chest" was never one of those descriptions, I believe it very well could have been from the accounts I've heard.<br /> <br /> The beauty of music of such genuine quality, is that this could have actually been about the writer planting his first backyard garden and his emotional reaction to that, where someone conquering an addiction hears--and relates entirely to--the exact same string of words. That's the divine in music.